10% Off WikiFresh

Say When

On the morning of Sunday, March 4, 2018, Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund (HWF) and volunteers don gloves and began hauling derelict fishing nets and ropes and other plastic marine debris collected from the shores of Ka‘ū. With a volunteer heavy equipment operator (JD Services LLC), the team loaded the 11.6 tons of marine debris into a 40-foot Matson shipping container, making this effort the single largest container load. Recently, HWF has had to increase efforts to keep up with the barrage of marine debris washing up along the Ka‘ū shoreline as this year has already seen record amounts.

Photos Courtesy Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund

“We have our work cut out for us as these large derelict fishing net bundles continue to wash up along our shores,” said HWF Program Director Megan Lamson. “Net and rope bundles present special entanglement hazards for our native wildlife, including protected species like the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and humpack whale. HWF and volunteers removed 66,235 lbs. of marine debris from Hawai‘i Island in 2017 (plus another 10,060 lbs. on Maui), of which 43% by weight were derelict fishing nets.”

Since 2005, HWF and volunteers have loaded over 106,000 lbs. of plastic marine debris into containers bound for O‘ahu in the Hawai‘i Nets-To-Energy program. Once on O‘ahu, the nets will be transported to Schnitzer Steel Industries, where they will be chopped into pieces suitable for combustion at the City and County of Honolulu’s H-Power energy waste facility run by Covanta Energy (transport and other services are donated free of charge). The combustion process drives steam-powered turbines to produce electricity. The Nets-To-Energy Program, organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is a multi-organizational marine debris partnership between local nonprofit community groups and private businesses.

HWF is a small nonprofit conservation organization founded in 1996 to conserve native wildlife. During its 22-year existence, HWF and volunteers have removed a total of 260 tons of marine debris from the shores of Hawai‘i Island (86% by weight), Maui, Midway and the French Frigate Shoals. In 2017 alone, HWF and volunteers have removed 60,838 lbs. of marine debris from Hawai‘i Island & Maui. The majority of HWF’s marine debris removal work is conducted by volunteer labor, with financial support from the federal government (grants from the NOAA’s Marine Debris Program and Kona Brewers Festival), local businesses (Matson Navigation’s Ka Ipu ‘Āina, Kona Surf Film Festival), and private donations from around the world.

If you would like more information on the project or how to get involved with HWF, please contact them at kahakai.cleanups@gmail.com or call (808) 769-7629 or check the HWF website.

Photo courtesy of University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Marine Option Program.

Photo courtesy of University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Marine Option Program.

Photo courtesy of University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Marine Option Program.

Photo courtesy of University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Marine Option Program.

Local groups completed an effort that began in late February to remove more than 1,500 pounds of marine debris from Hilo Bay on Nov. 4.

The effort began following a report received by the Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund (HWF) from faculty at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s (UHH) Marine Science Department that a massive fishing net bundle had lodged itself into the Hilo breakwall. HWF worked together with biologists from the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) – Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) and UHH to attempt a removal of the bundle in late March, but only managed to free a small portion of the tangled net.

Six months later, mother nature took charge when high surf broke the net bundle free of the breakwall. On the morning of Oct. 14, a dive team from the UHH Marine Option Program’s Sea Surveying, Training and Response Squad (SeaSTARS) spotted the loose net floating in Hilo Bay with assistance from members of the Kamehameha Canoe Club. A team of four MOP divers led by UHH MOP staff coordinator Matthew Connelly used a 17-foot vessel to tow the net from the end of Hilo breakwall towards Bayfront. Within 100 yards of the shoreline, the vessel anchored and three UHH students—Julia Stewart, Rosie Lee and Keelee Martin—swam the debris to shore using safety lines.

With the help of several canoe club members including Troy Parker-Bailey with the Puna Canoe Club, MOP co-coordinator Jen Sims, and two large 4WD vehicles, the team successfully hauled the massive bundle from shore to the Bayfront parking lot.

HWF staff and volunteers used a winch and pickup truck to retrieve the last remains of the net bundle on Saturday, Nov. 4, completing a nearly nine-month recovery effort. The net was hauled to the County of Hawai‘i’s Wai‘ōhinu Transfer Station where it will be stored until January 2018 when HWF arranges a 40-foot container full of nets to be shipped to O‘ahu for processing in the NOAA Nets-to-Energy Partnership with support from Matson Navigation and Schnitzer Steel.

Matt Connelly, UHH MOP Staff Coordinator and Marine Science Academic Support Specialist expressed his gratitude for the collective effort: “I want to thank the awesome Marine Option Program/Marine Science students that were really the driving force behind the whole operation; the Marine Science Department for having the resources available to do this for the ocean and the community; the canoe club members who helped out even though they were in the middle of a gathering, and for sharing their food with us when the work was pau; and HWF and DLNR for coordinating to get it hauled away and put to good use.”

“Getting this net out took time and patience,” said Stacey Breining, HWF education coordinator. “It was a true community effort. We (HWF) rely on the relationships we create with our communities to make our coastal ecosystems less dangerous for native wildlife. We are happy this net is out of the ocean, out of our landfill and awaiting transport to H-Power so it can be combusted in the Nets-to-Energy Partnership and bring electric power to O‘ahu.”

HWF is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to conserve native wildlife. Since it started, staff and volunteers have removed a total of 264 tons of marine debris from the shores of Hawai’i Island, Maui, Midway and the French Frigate Shoals. In 2017 alone, HWF and volunteers have removed 68,750 pounds of marine debris from Hawai’i Island and Maui through 60 community cleanup events.

For more information on these conservation efforts, or to learn about volunteer opportunities with HWF, email kahakai.cleanups@gmail.com, call the Hawai‘i Island marine debris hotline at (808) 769-7629, or visit www.wildhawaii.org.

Last Saturday, Hawai’i Wildlife Fund (HWF) and 8 volunteers loaded another 15,000 pounds of derelict fishing nets and bundles of line into a 40′ Matson container. This is the 10th container that has been filled by HWF since 2005. HWF saves the nets it collects from marine debris cleanup events along the shoreline for inclusion in NOAA’s “nets to energy” partnership. Hawai’i was the first in the country to have a program like this in which these marine debris items are converted to electricity rather than going into a landfill. Now, many ports around the mainland US have similar strategies for this “fishing for energy” framework.

Net pile with 16 months worth of collection by HWF on Hawai’i Island

“This work would not be possible without the hundreds of volunteers who help Hawaii Wildlife Fund with these ocean debris removal efforts every year. In particular, this net loading was made possible due to the generous donation by JD Services, LLC of a tractor and operator for the day, and the County of Hawaii for allowing us to store these nets at the Nā‘āhelu transfer station in between container loads,” said Megan Lamson, HWF Program Director for Hawaii Island.

Here in Hawaii, Matson Navigation provides the 40′ container and free shipping of this type of marine debris from outer islands to O’ahu. Then, Schnitzer Steel, a metal recycling company, cuts the nets into smaller pieces before they are delivered to the Covanta H-power Plant in Kapolei. There, they are burned and converted to electricity for the City and County of Honolulu.

Megan Lamson controlling winch pulling a large net off the Ka’ū coast.

The vast majority of these nets were pulled off the remote and rocky Ka’ū coastline. Six large net bundles (~1,200 lbs) were pulled out of the ocean by boaters in West Hawai’i and dropped off at Honokōhau Harbor earlier in 2017.

Lamson says, “HWF is committed to removing marine debris from along our shorelines and working with local residents, businesses and government representatives to reduce the amount of plastic that finds its way into the ocean. Plastic pollution is a serious problem that now impacts most life forms that live in the ocean or use the ocean as a food source. But, it’s a problem with an obvious solution. We must start reducing our usage of plastics, especially single-use plastics in order to protect the health of the ocean, and the health of the wildlife and people who depend on the ocean – all of us!”

Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund (HWF) is excited to announce the release of our new marine debris prevention curriculum designed for elementary school students around Hawaiʻi.

Over the past two school years, HWF mentors piloted this curriculum in 20 public schools working with over 52 different teachers and 1,140 students (grade kindergarten to 5th). HWF mentors worked with students at schools around Hawaiʻi Island: in Kona, Kohala, Kaʻū, Hāmākua, Hilo, and Puna.

Marine debris and how land-based litter sources find their way into the sea

Exploring what a “discard” really is and how our daily choices affect the amount of trash we produce

Vulnerability of island ecosystems and communities and the responsibility (kuleana) that we each have to protect them.

The curriculum was designed as a 3-visit program that challenged students to put forward innovative solutions to this global marine-debris problem. The lessons are aligned with all Common Core and Next Generation Science and other benchmarks relevant to the elementary school level.

“It was a great pleasure guest teaching in the many different classrooms around the island. We look forward to deepening our relationships with Hawaiʻi Island students and teachers in the coming years” said HWF mentor and Education Coordinator, Stacey Breining.

In addition, nine cleanup events were conducted as an optional follow-up component of this program (6 beach cleanups, 2 stream cleanups, 1 campus cleanup). During these nine cleanup events, 286 students participated in removing over 1,500 lbs. of marine and land-based debris items from the coastline, stream banks, or their campus.

Last week, Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund (HWF) & World Ocean Collective (WOC) hosted their first ever international symposium in Hilo, Hawaii, entitled the 2015 Hilo Symposium on Marine Debris & Tsunami Driftage: Dialogue on marine debris removal, prevention, disaster recovery and making connections around the North Pacific.

Photo of the symposium attendees after Friday night’s public event.

It took place on December 3rd-4th, 2015 at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA)’s Mokupāpapa Discovery Center in downtown Hilo, followed by a culminating beach cleanup event hosted by HWF at Kamilo Point, Ka’ū District, Hawai’i Island on December 5th.

Share updates and new information about ongoing marine debris prevention work; and

Make connections and work together to reduce the amount of marine debris in our world’s oceans and waterways.

In total, 50 participants attended the entire two-day symposium and subsequent cleanup event where over 1,000 pounds of marine debris were collected for disposal, art projects and recycling. Well over 100 people attended the public symposium on Friday evening (Dec. 4th) in downtown Hilo. Working with members of the international marine debris removal community, Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund showcased the work of non-profit and agency partners around the Pacific shorelines that has been accomplished in response to and since the March 11th, 2011 earthquake and tsunami tragedy in East Japan. Presentations were given by experts from Hawai‘i Island, O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, Washington State, British Columbia, Georgia, and Japan.

“We are humbled by the turnout of this past week and have made new friends and allies in our mission to remove and prevent marine debris to protect native wildlife. The three days with our partners around the North Pacific were very productive”, said Megan Lamson, HWF’s Hawaiʻi Island Program Director. “Marine debris is everyone’s problem and is a worldwide issue. We have to think globally and act locally to inspire the change we seek in this world. By coming together to share stories and to discuss effective cleanup strategies as a team, we can reduce the amount of marine debris in our world’s oceans hopefully even prevent it.”

Group shot after the Kamilo cleanup event where over 1,000 lbs. of debris were removed in about three hous by HWF and volunteers.

There were eight presentations each day, including a keynote speech by Dr. Walter Dudley, Emeritus Professor of Marine Geology and Oceanography with the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, where he taught for over 30 years. Dudley also serves as Science Advisory Council chair with the Pacific Tsunami Museum. During his talk, he shared the science of tsunamis, preparedness advice, facts about local Hilo tsunamis, and also stories about how disaster debris saved lives (when it was used as life rafts).

In addition, an update was provided on marine debris monitoring and response by DLNR’s new Marine Debris Coordinator, Kirsten Moy, who introduced Resource Mapping’s Miguel Castrence to discuss the aerial-ortho imagery their company is collecting to identify current marine debris and “JTMD” (Japan Tsunami Marine Debris) hotspots around each of the shorelines in the Main Hawaiian Islands.

Both this aerial survey project and the debris coordinator position were funded by donations from the Japan Ministry of the Environment after the March 2011 East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Moy shared that as of September 2015, 64 debris items had been confirmed as JTMD and about half of them, or 30, had washed ashore in Hawaiʻi or were discovered in Hawaiian waters.

The evening was concluded with a final talk from Angela Kang, coordinator of the Hawai‘i Zero Waste Alliance. Kang’s presentation was titled, “The Tao of Zero Waste” and she urged audience members to live a more pono lifestyle by only purchasing items that can be recycled or composted, and not incinerated or landfilled. Lamson closed the evening by adding that, “There is no time for negativity and we must all be on board together to stop this global flood of marine debris”.

Saturday marked the fifth year that Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund (HWF) has teamed up with the State’s Natural Area Reserve crew to clean up a stretch of coastline within the Manukā Natural Area Reserve (NAR), which extends from Ka‘ū into South Kona. During this time, over 130 people have helped haul over 2,975 pounds of marine debris and shoreline rubbish off this remote stretch of coastline that extends from Humuhumu Pt. to the north.

Group photo at the end of a long, successful, cleanup day!

This weekend was no different. After driving over very rough roads and hiking over a mile each way, the 30 cleanup participants hauled 26 bags of debris (weighing ~430 lbs.) off the isolated shoreline. Volunteers came from Hilo, Kona, Puna and Kaʻū and worked for hours on this collective mission to mālama ke kahakai (take care of the shoreline).

NAR Specialist, Jenn Randall, arranged to bring an all-terrain vehicle to haul debris back to the staging site where it will be removed by helicopter in the coming week. Mike McCagh, with HI Kombucha, brought a keg of grapefruit kombucha tea to share with the hardworking participants. Tony Villegas, with Coconut Auto Repair, provided a 4WD vehicle to transport a group of youngsters from Kaʻū. Joe Robinson, underwater photographer from Kailua-Kona, donated his time and equipment to photo document and film the event. Randall, added that they were quite pleased by the outcome of the day and that volunteers had removed all the debris she was hoping for with energy and enthusiasm.

HWF has been leading community-based efforts to remove marine debris from along the Ka‘ū coastline since 2003. During this time, HWF estimates that over 90% of the 168 tons of debris removed is plastic (e.g., fishing line/nets, shampoo bottles, toothbrushes). As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Marine Debris Program shares, “Marine debris affects everyone”. Here locally, HWF strongly believes that the solution begins with individuals like those of who volunteered this weekend and with the small decisions that residents of Hawaiʻi Island make each day.

An assortment of interesting finds from the event … (not including one small glass float).

Examples of these choices include re-using or simply refusing single-usage plastics, bringing your own water bottle or using available drinking fountains, and carrying your own to-go ware to Styrofoam-toting restaurants.

HWF’s Project Coordinator, Megan Lamson, implores, “Do your part to help our marine and coastal wildlife: choose to re-use, remember to recycle, and limit your single-use purchases! We live on an island, and we must be mindful of how we are treating the land, freshwater, and ocean that support us.”

Hawaii Wildlife Fund (HWF) and Laupahoehoe Public Charter School’s sixth graders teamed up to spruce up Hilo’s bayfront on Friday.

Bags full of trash, weighing in at around 55 pounds, were removed from Hilo’s bayfront Friday morning by 6th grade students from LPCS at a beach clean up hosted by a local non-profit, Hawaii Wildlife Fund”

This cleanup was in preparation for Sunday’s Ocean Day Mālama Kanaloa event. In only one hour, 10 students and 5 adults managed to remove 1,082 pieces of trash from the bayfront – approximately 55 lbs in 2 bags. The crew mostly picked up land-based trash including lots of cigarette butts along with some more interesting finds like a cow bell, a shaving razor, and several small bundles of derelict fishing nets.

A 6th grader, from Laupahoehoe Public Charter SChool (LPCS) removes a large tire from Hilo’s bayfront on Friday, March 7 during a beach clean up with Hawai’i Wildlife Fund.

HWF is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Hawaii’s native flora and fauna

HWF will provide gloves, buckets, tools, sunscreen and water re-fills.

PRIZES will be awarded to the best ne “muck sucker”, for the best fall into the pool, to the dirtiest volunteer (i.e. covered in much and/or limu and to the person who hauls the most buckets of paspalum.

For more info OR to RSVP please contact Megan Rose Lamson at meg.HWF@gmail.com or 808/769-7629.

On Tuesday (March 5th), Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund (HWF) staff and several volunteers brought an LA-based CNN news crew down to Kamilo Point to talk story about potential Japanese Tsunami Marine Debris and marine debris problems along the southeast coastline.

The story will be told by CNN news correspondent Kyung Lah. The first part of this story will air on Mon., March 11th at 9am Eastern Standard Time “EST” (4am in Hawaiʻi“ HST” so have your DVRs ready!), at 10am EST (5am HST), and will re-run throughout the day. HWF will post a link on their website www.wildhawaii.org and on their Facebook page www.facebook.com/hawaiiwildlifefund as soon as it appears online.

This story will appear as a special on the two-year anniversary of the huge tsunami that originated in the Fukushima district in Japan.

HWF would again like to express our deepest sympathy to the victims and victims’ family of this natural disaster. First and foremost, this event was a human tragedy. Thousands of people died, and yes indeed, tons of debris were also released into the ocean. While we are thankful for the amount of attention this event has caused for marine debris awareness around the globe, we want all of our volunteers to recognize that marine debris has been a serious problem for decades (basically since the invention of plastic). HWF has picked up international debris from shorelines throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago since 1998 and realizes that marine debris is a people problem, not solely the result of a single tsunami event or country of origin.

Let us not forget that each of us contributes to this problem daily by using (and improperly disposing of) single-use throwaway and non-recyclable plastic products. In turn, we can each be part of the solution and choose to re-use, reduce, recycle, and refuse (excess packaging, single-use items, etc.) and participate in local cleanup events.

While CNN was setting up shop, HWF and volunteers quickly removed over 200 pounds of marine debris from the coastline with an hour’s effort. And until there is a better solution, HWF and volunteers will continue to pick up the pieces here in Hawaiʻi nei.

FYI another follow-up story that focuses on marine debris problems in general, NOAA’s Nets-to-Energy Program, and recycled “ocean plastic” bottled cleaning products by SF-based company, Method, will air on CNN national and international broadcasting programs in April.